Two members of Maine’s congressional delegation disagree over the need for an independent probe of emergency responses to Hurricane Katrina by governmental agencies.
Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, is calling for a politically neutral commission modeled on the 9/11 Commission in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks. The families of those who died in those 2001 attacks insisted on an inquiry carried out by people who didn’t hold political office.
“The panel was created after the families of 9/11 victims concluded that the Republican-led Congress could not adequately investigate the Bush administration,” he said in a written statement. “Since the political reality had not changed, we owe it to the victims of Katrina to again create an independent commission free of political bias.”
On the other hand, Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, said Monday in a phone interview that it is “too soon to tell” whether outside review is warranted.
Official analysis of emergency response to the terrorist attacks started with a congressional hearing. Creation of the 9/11 Commission came later, she said. It is too soon to take that next step at this time, she said.
Collins chairs the committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security. Her committee has scheduled hearings starting Wednesday to determine whether governmental agencies at local, state and federal levels did everything they should have before, during and after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast.
Allen co-sponsored legislation that would separate the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Department of Homeland Security, making it an independent agency again.
Collins disagreed that the link between the two agencies should be severed. Because the two agencies must work hand in hand in responding to terrorist attacks, it makes sense to have them joined administratively, she said. FEMA also should continue to be part of the same organization as the Coast Guard, she said, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
Collins also has been critical of agencies’ handling of the crisis caused by the hurricane. Both evacuation and rescue efforts fell well short of expectations.
“It suggests that four years after the terrible attacks on our country at least one area of our country was woefully ill-prepared to respond” to an emergency, she said. More troubling is the fact that the hurricane was a foreseeable natural disaster that should have allowed for adequate time to prepare, she said.
Comments are no longer available on this story